19 May in WW2 History | World War II Database

19 May 1934

Minneapolis was commissioned into service.
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19 May 1935

T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) died after being involved in a motorcycle accident six days earlier.

19 May 1939

Chinese troops captured Zaoyang, Hubei Province, China.
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St. Louis was commissioned into service.
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19 May 1940

French Army General Weygand replaced General Gamelin as Chief of the General Staff and Commander-in-Chief; Marshal Petain was made Deputy Prime Minister.
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German General Guderian resumed his attack, capturing territories between Saint-Quentin and Péronne. His troops were now within 50 miles of the English Channel and had cut off the Allied troops in Belgium. British Expeditionary Force commander General Lord Gort issued the order to withdraw toward port cities, including Dunkirk, while Colonel de Gaulle's French 4th Armored Division made a failed attempt to attack Guderian's flank at Montcornet.
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German submarine U-37 sank Swedish merchant vessel Erik Frisell off Scotland at 0631 hours. The crew of 34 were later rescued by armed trawler HMS Cobbers.
The British Royal Air Force had lost over half of the aircraft it had deployed to France and Beligum by this date. To retain strength for a potential invasion of Britain, the RAF began recalling remaining squadrons back home.
Photos dated 19 May 1940

19 May 1941

4,777 Italian and colonial troops formally surrendered at Amba Alagi, Abyssinia at 1115 hours, parading out of the fortress with rifles on their shoulders.
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Iraqis surrender the town of Fallujah after it was subjected to aerial and artillery bombardment by the British; 300 Iraqi troops were taken prisoner. On the same day, German bombers attacked RAF Habbaniya in Iraq.
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German aircraft attacked British airfields on Crete, Greece. To prevent destruction, the British RAF evacuated all aircraft from Crete to Egypt.
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Vichy France announced the repatriation of 100,000 French prisoners of war.
British Army Sergeant Nigel Leakey was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross after being killed in action single-handedly knocking out Italian tanks in Abyssinia.
German submarine U-96 sank British ship Empire Ridge 50 miles northwest of Ireland at 0324 hours; 31 were killed, 2 survived and rescued by destroyer HMS Vanquisher.
"Guidelines for the behaviour of the troops in Russia" demanded that German troops use "ruthless and energetic action against Bolshevik agitators, guerrillas, saboteurs (and) Jews" and approved the complete liquidation of any "active or passive resistance".
Battleship Bismarck departed Gotenhafen at 0200 hours and rendezvoused with heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and destroyers Z-16 Friedrich Eckoldt and Z-23 off Rügen Island at 1200 hours. At 2230 hours, destroyer Z-10 Hans Lody joined the group.
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Heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen rendezvoused with battleship Bismarck off Rügen Island at 1200 hours.
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19 May 1942

The US base at Midway was ordered to send out a false message, unencrypted, about water shortage.
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Japanese submarine-based seaplanes conducted a scouting mission over Fiji and Zanzibar.
German submarine U-506 sank US freighter Heredia 100 kilometers southwest of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, killing 36 of 62 aboard. 200 kilometers southeast of New Orleans and 200 kilometers west of Havana, Cuba, U-103 sank US freighter Ogontz, killing 19 of 41 aboard.
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All but 40 of the Polish prisoners at Oflag IV-C prisoners of war camp at Colditz Castle in Germany were transferred to another camp.
A surprise German pincer movement threatened to trap a large contingent of Soviet troops at Izium near Kharkov, Ukraine. Joseph Stalin belated granted permission for the troops to withdraw.
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Yamato departed Kure, Japan for battle training. The new light carrier Junyo, under Captain Shizue Ishii, almost sidewiped Yamato.
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Tatsuta Maru arrived at Manila, Philippine Islands.
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19 May 1943

German propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels declared Berlin Judenfrei ("Free of Jews"). In truth, about 2,000 to 3,000 Jews were in hiding in Berlin, while another 18,000 Germans of mixed Jewish heritage were living in Berlin legally.
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In the North Atlantic, as German submarines began to form an attack formation against Allied convoy SC 130, Liberator bombers of No. 120 Squadron RAF pre-emptively struck them, breaking up the attack. The convoy was met by additional 3 frigates and 1 sloop as reinforcement.
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30 TBF Avenger aircraft of US Marine Scout-Bomber Squadron 143 and US Navy Tropedo Squadron 11 mined waters off Buin, Bougainville, Solomon Islands.
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Robert Johnson engaged in combat with German fighters over Europe.
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USS Gar reported sinking a Japanese sampan in daylight with her deck gun.
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Sproston was commissioned into service.
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USS Pollack sank Japanese ship Bangkok Maru in the Gilbert Islands with three of four torpedoes fired.
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Photos dated 19 May 1943

19 May 1944

James Forrestal became the Secretary of the Navy of the United States.
British troops captured the airfield at Aquino outside of Rome, Italy.
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Joel Brand of the Hungarian Zionist Relief and Rescue Committee and Gestapo Agent Bandi Grosz (alias Andre Gyorgy) arrived in Istanbul, Turkey to deliver a message for the Allied powers: Germany would spare the lives of 700,000 Hungarian Jews if the Allies would provide Germany with 10,000 trucks, 2 million bars of soap, 800 tons of coffee, 200 tons of cocoa, and 800 tons of tea. The British government concluded that it was a German scheme to install suspicion in the Soviet Union toward the Western Allies.
An Anglo-Indian attack on Naga, India was repulsed with heavy casualties.
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Three Chinese battalions attacked each other in confusion while assaulting Myitkyina, Burma.
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Frank Merrill suffered another heart attack.
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Japanese hospital ship Hikawa Maru arrived at Singapore.
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USS Franklin arrived at San Diego, California, United States.
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USS Hoe claimed damaging a Japanese ship and sinking another after scoring 2 torpedoes on each of the ships; a total of 10 torpedoes were fired.
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19 May 1945

French troops landed in Syria and Lebanon. Arab nationalists launched protest demonstrations against the landing.
Alfred Rosenberg was captured at Flensburg, Germany.
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Stalin denied that his troops had been arresting Polish leaders for political reasons.
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US 43rd Division secured the Ipoh dam area north of Manila, Luzon, Philippine Islands. US 25th Division began mopping up operations at Santa, Romblon, Philippine Islands.
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US 77th Division withdrew near the Ishimmi Ridge at Okinawa, Japan after suffering heavy casualties.
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272 B-29 Superfortress bombers struck Hamamatsu, Japan.
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Japanese hospital ship Hikawa Maru departed Sasebo, Japan.
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Destroyer Yukikaze arrived at Maizuru, Japan.
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19 May 1949

Chen Cheng announced martial law in the Republic of China, which was effectively the islands of Taiwan, Penghu, and other surrounding islands under Chinese control.
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19 May 1952